Understanding that engineers, city planners, and government didn’t have the answers to many environmental problems, I began looking for ways that I could solve them starting with myself, from the bottom up. In 1989 I wrote up my experiences in a small self-published book, ‘Ecology Begins at Home: Using the Power of Choice,’ now a free download PDF.

Living in a suburb, giving up the car — gradual at first — was easy. Vacation travel by train was easy, too, but giving up flying to visit my family on another continent was harder; my family felt hurt and slighted when I didn’t visit them. My partner, too, feels the loss of exciting vacations abroad by air. Still, I persist as best I can in what I know is right and good for us all.